


The Simplest Terms

by MyVantilene



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, like so hard that you close your eyes and just imagine it for yourself, there's some slight percabeth but only if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1503752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyVantilene/pseuds/MyVantilene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saturday detention wasn't necessarily the worst thing to ever happen to them. </p><p>Breakfast Club AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Simplest Terms

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to write a full-blown Breakfast Club AU but I've been swamped with too many other projects, so it's basically all of Allison's significant scenes, rewritten to fit Nico. If you haven't watched the Breakfast Club, first of all you should, and second of all you'll probably be able to get through this but there are some parts I didn't want to write out, but are referenced. Just a bit of a heads up.

The car ride was silent. Nico sat in the back seat, where every little bump and turn was magnified. Persephone drove and Hades slept in the passenger seat, black sunglasses obscuring his face.

“You’re not going to ask what I did to get detention?”

Silence.

Numb, omnipresent silence.

“Where are you and Dad going on your business trip?”

Persephone’s knuckles went white against the black of the steering wheel, but other than that, she didn’t respond.

Nothing.

Silence.

They almost ran over a kid in sunglasses, who hardly reacted to very nearly becoming roadkill. Persephone didn’t either. Hades woke up, but didn’t say anything as Nico swung his bag over his shoulder and got out of the car. He leaned over to the window to say goodbye, but the ‘I love you’ died on his lips as the car sped off.

* * *

Nico doesn’t say a word for most of the morning, content to just listen to Percy (the kid he’d almost run over) and Annabeth (a pretty blonde girl who sat up at the front) fight. Leo (the junior inventor who sat a couple desks in front of him) and Jason (a pretty blonde boy who sat up at the front) would sometimes interject, the former to incite conflict, and the latter to end it. It was only when Mr. D let them go out to the teacher lounge’s vending machine that anyone bothered to talk to him.

“What’s your poison?” Jason asked, slowing down to walk next to him.

It took Nico a moment to process that the question was directed at him, and that he should probably answer.

“Uh… I’m not sure what you’re asking me.”

Jason stared at him a moment before shaking his head.

“Forget it.”

But Nico doesn’t want to, because it’s been such a long time since someone actually wanted to talk to him., and he can’t let the opportunity pass him by.

“Well, why don’t you answer the question, then? I’m sure I can get it with context clues.”

Jason stared at him again, and Nico wished he would quit it. Those blue eyes were overwhelming when they focused on you.

“Coca-Cola.” He answered eventually.

“Oh. Then, um, mine’s water.”

“Water?”

“Carbonated drinks don’t really agree with me,” he kicked at the ground, “I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about my favorite drink.”

Jason gave him another one those looks, the kind that made him feel like he was being dissected, before dropping his gaze.

Great. He’d scared him off. Calling water your favorite drink was probably a whole new level of weird. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut.

He doesn’t talk again for a long time after that, not until he’s back at his desk, unpacking his lunch (a half a pomegranate and a few of orange slices). Jason placed three cans of Arizona tea down in front of him, each a different flavor.

Nico looked up at him inquisitively, not trusting his words for a second.

“You said you didn’t like carbonated stuff, and that you never really thought about your favorite drink before so…” He trailed off, scratching the back of his neck. Fascinating. Apparently his “death” aura was enough to make a 190-pound jock uneasy.

Nico let out a quick and quiet “thank you” before undoing the cap on one and taking a sip. He expected Jason to book it the first chance he got, but he stayed, standing there, _smiling_ , of all things.

“Is there something in this?”

“Why? Is it that bad?”

“No, I…” he took another sip, bowing his head and letting his hair fall into his eyes, “Forget it.”

“Hey, wait a minute, you think I put something in your drink?”

“Well, no, it’s just… you look like you got away with some prank, and that in a second it’s going to turn out to be spiked or something.”

“They were sealed cans. Besides, that’s more Percy’s style.”

“Then why do you look like you’ve gotten away with murder?”

“Because you’re talking to me.”

Nico almost spit out his tea, which made Jason laugh and in the rational part of his brain, he knew he was supposed to be embarrassed, but he couldn’t help but feel warm at the sound. His laugh was so bright.

“I take it lemon isn’t your flavor,” he said, having the audacity to smirk as Nico sputtered, “But it has to be better than water, right?”

“Choking is not any better, sorry.” He replied after his windpipe was clear.

“What about the grape one, then? Everyone loves grape.”

“Not everyone.” He said grimly.

“Seriously? What about the cherry?”

Nico shook his head.

“Alright, well you’re losing credibility right now. I mean, what did you even bring for lunch? A pomegranate?”

“And some orange slices.” Nico added hotly.

Jason laughed again, and Nico decided that he really, really liked the sound.

“You want to split my lunch with me, then?”

“Why on earth would you want to do that?”

“My mom always packs too much and you’ve got a half-eaten pomegranate.”

“I had the first half for breakfast.” Nico said defensively, mentally kicking himself because it wasn’t really much of a rebuttal.    

“Exactly, you need the meat.”

“Okay, so first you buy me three Arizona teas and now you’re offering to go halvsies on… what? An entire ham?” he crossed his arms, “Why are you really over here, Jason? What’s your angle?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Nico crossed his arms.

“No one talks to me unless they want something.” He said bluntly.

“Oh really? You haven’t even considered the possibility that I might actually want get to know you?”

“Get to know me?” Nico asked incredulously, “What’s my name? If you really wanted to _get to know each other_ you would’ve asked for it.”

“What would be the point? I already know you’re Nico di Angelo.”

Nico just stared at him with wide eyes.

“You think that’s cool? I also know you’re a high school sophomore, you went to Grigori Middle School, and you sit in the left hand corner of my chemistry class.”

Nico blinked.

“ _Why_ do you know that?”

Jason rolled his eyes.

“Because I want to get to know you. I thought that much was obvious.”

“Oh,” Nico squeaked, “Okay.”

* * *

 They had lunch together, and after Percy led them on a quest to his locker, Nico settled down with his bag next to Jason and Leo.

“What’s in that thing, anyway?” Leo asked, snapping the shoulder strap for emphasis. Nico flinched when it slapped against his shoulder.

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, right. Come on, we already went through Annabeth’s bag, it’s nothing we haven’t already seen.”

Nico frowned.

“I don’t have any makeup in my bag.”

“Then prove it.”

“Leo, back off,” Jason cut in, “He doesn’t have to show you if he doesn’t want to.”

Nico appreciated Jason making an attempt to be friends with him, but the jock had been shielding him from Leo and Percy’s jokes all afternoon and quite frankly it was getting annoying. Nico was fully capable of fighting his own battles, thank you very much. As a point, he dumped out everything in his bag.

“What… what is all this stuff?” Leo picked up a mismatched sock, “Are you going to be one of those shopping cart dudes? You know like, sit in alleyways and talk to buildings and that kinda thing?”

Nico fixed him with a glare.  
“I’ll do what I have to do.”

“And why do you have to do anything?” Jason asked.

Nico hesitated, before slowly picking up his stuff and putting it back in his bag.

“My home life is… unsatisfying.”

“So you’re saying you’d subject yourself to the violent dangers of the Chicago streets because your home life is _unsatisfying_?”

“I don’t see a lot of other options.”

Leo shot Jason a look.

“Jason… you want to get on this? Nico here says he wants to run away because his home life is unsatisfying.”

“Well, everyone’s home lives are unsatisfying. If it wasn’t, people would live with their parents forever.”

“Yeah, yeah, I understand. But I think that his goes beyond, you know, what guys like you and me consider normal unsatisfying.”

“Never mind,” Nico said quickly, “Forget it, everything’s cool!”

“What’s the matter?”

“No! Nothing’s the matter, Sporto. Forget it, leave me alone.”

He picked up his bag and hurried off to the other side of the library. He sat down between two bookshelves tucked away in the back. He couldn’t really tell Jason about this. They’d barely been friends for a couple hours and Nico was not going to unload on him. It’d probably scare him off and it may have been a four-hour friendship, but he’d never had one last that long since he was ten.

A shadow darkened his vision.

“Hi,” Jason said, crouching down to Nico’s place on the floor, “You want to talk?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Go away.”

“Where do you want me to go?”

“I-I don’t _know_. Away.”

Nico swatted at his eyes, fighting against premature tears. He knows all the signs. He knows the dams about to break but it _can’t_ , not here, not in front of Jason.

“You have problems.” Nico bit out.

“Oh, I have problems?”

“You do everything that everybody ever tells you to do, _that_ is a problem!”  
“Okay, fine. But I didn’t dump my bag out on the couch and invite people into my problems, did I?” he tentatively reached out to take Nico’s hand, “So what’s wrong? What is it? Is it bad, real bad? Parents?”

Nico placed a hand over his face and looked somewhere beyond Jason, the sobs just shaky breathing. He’s gotten so used to crying silently and normally it works, normally everything’s fine and no one has to know, his hair covers his red rimmed eyes and nobody ever wants to look harder, but it doesn’t work, because Jason’s paying attention and someone like him shouldn’t even being doing that in the first place and everything just comes out but he never makes a sound because he’s trained himself, he’s become so good.

“Yeah…” he answered, trying to iron out his voice to hide all the hideous creases. He wanted to disappear, but Jason’s eyes were on him, attentive, as they had been since he’d entered the detention room.

“What do they do to you?”

And it took Nico a moment to realize that Jason was crying too, not nearly as silently, but not too loud, either. It is a library after all.

“They ignore me.” He admitted.

Jason opened his arms and Nico fell into them, his chest aching, and he wondered why Jason, of all people, was crying, but he was just so thankful that he wasn’t the only one pouring out everything. They stayed like that for a while.

* * *

 

Later Annabeth caught them sitting on the railing, and wrapped a hand around Nico’s wrist.

“Come on.”

“Where’re we going?”

“Come on!” She insisted, giving Jason a look.

“What? Are you going to give me a makeover or something?”  
All Annabeth did was smile.

“You are, aren’t you?” He ripped his hand away, but there was a vague smile on his face.

“No chance in hell.”

“Oh, don’t be that way. It’ll be fun.”

Nico looked to Jason desperately.

“Aren’t you going to back me up on this?”

Jason shrugged and held his hands up like ‘what can you do?’

“Sorry, Nico. Your bodyguard’s hands are tied. Now, come on.” And with that he was dragged away, shooting daggers over his shoulder at Jason.

* * *

 

“Don’t be afraid.” Annabeth cooed.

“Yeah, cause I’m supposed to be completely okay with you drawing on my face.”

“It’s just concealer, calm down. You might look decent if I can distract people from those bags under your eyes.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t roll your eyes! It makes it harder.”

“Sorry.”

“And stop biting your lip! That’s my good lip balm.”

“Well, you’re wasting it either way.”

Annabeth harrumphed, and Nico swore that she poked his eye on purpose.

“You know… you really do look a lot better without that whole doom and gloom thing going on.”

“I thought the point of this was to distract people from my face.”

“I meant the bags under your eyes. You always look like you’re running on two-hour sleep.”

“The rest of my face isn’t any better.”

“Oh, don’t say that. Jason wouldn’t have spent the entire day chasing after you if it wasn’t.”

“J-Jason’s not — _chasing_ after me. He’s just nice.”

“Yeah, well he’s nice to Leo too but you don’t see Jason getting all rosy-eyed at everything that comes out of _his_ mouth.”

“Rosy-eyed —“ Nico sputtered, “What does that even _mean_?”

“It means you give him a heart boner or something, I don’t know, but he’s definitely crushing and—oh my god! Oh my god, you’re blushing.”

Nico swallowed thickly.

“Am not.”

“Are too!” Annabeth shot back, because she was a mature, respectable upperclassman.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, “But Jason’s not into me like that, I mean, come _on_. He’s practically every golden boy quarterback stereotype rolled into one and I’m…well, you know.”

“Don’t bite your lip!”

“Sorry.”

“And don’t talk like that, either,” she admonished, pulling a brush out of her purse and pushing his bangs out of his eyes, “You can’t sell yourself short all the time or people are going to walk all over you.”

“But I have, like, zero redeeming qualities.”

“That’s not true.” She huffed, gathering his hair in her hand and brushing the tangles out.

“Annabeth, be real. You said yourself that if I came up to you in the hallway, you wouldn’t even acknowledge me.”

“I wouldn’t ignore you, Nico. Never. I’m just… not sure if I’m ready to break away from my friends yet. I mean, they hardly tolerate me _talking_ about architecture, imagine if I just came bursting through the doors Monday morning with one of my physics conference t-shirts and an ‘I love Pythagoras’ bag, Percy draped on my arm. I’m not really ready to show everyone the things I really care about, but when I am, you could come up to me in the hallway singing show tunes and I wouldn’t turn you away.”

“Am I lowering your standards that much?”

Annabeth huffed again, slightly offended.

“Are you always this self-deprecating?”

“… There’s no right answer to that, is there?”

Annabeth sighed, setting her brush down, and sitting in front of Nico to examine him.

“Aw,” she tilted his head up a bit, “You can finally see your eyes now.”

“The room’s too bright.” He mumbled, standing up. Annabeth laughed and followed suit.

“Come on,” she said, hooking arms with him, “Let’s go show you off.”

* * *

 

“Holy shit,” was the first thing out of Leo’s mouth, “What did you do to di Angelo?”

He tried to retreat, but Annabeth’s grip was firm.

“See,” Nico muttered, “Even Leo thinks I look ridiculous.”

“Of course he doesn’t. Leo, do you think Nico looks ridiculous?”

“Are you sure that’s even him?” Leo squinted, ignoring the question, “Looks more like his cute twin sister.”

“I told you this was a bad idea!”

“Leo’s just saying that because he’s defensive about his heterosexuality.”

“He doesn’t even look that hot!”

“Well, your opinion doesn’t matter anyway. Where’s Jason?”

“Try the history section.”

And with that, Annabeth was dragging him off again.

Nico thought he’d at least have the comfort of having Annabeth with him, but right when they spotted Jason, she pushed Nico into the aisle and when he turned around, she was gone.

“…Nico?”

He froze.

“What happened to you?”

He stepped closer and Nico found himself stepping back. He felt nervous under those blue eyes again.

“Why? Annabeth did it. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just so different. I can actually see your face.”  
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Jason laughed in that bright way of his and Nico found himself smiling a little too despite his nerves.

“I-It’s good!”

Nico went to stuff his hands in his jacket out of habit, but he mentally slapped himself when his fists met only air. Annabeth had confiscated it — “I can barely see you with this thing on”— and now he really had nowhere to hide.

“You don’t have to say that just to spare my feelings.”

“What? No, you really do, scout’s honor.”

Nico snorted.

“So, um…” Jason scratched at his forearm, “There’s this great pizza place that just opened up and I was thinking of trying it out. D’you want to come with?”

Nico squinted.

“…Are you asking me out?”

“Um, if you want to?”

Nico beamed, reaching out to intertwine his fingers with Jason’s, “I want to.”


End file.
